Friday, February 10, 2017

At
an Oval Office ceremony for the swearing in of Jeff Sessions as
attorney general, President Trump announced that he was also going to
sign three executive orders “designed to restore safety in America,” to
“break the back” of cartels and “stop as of today” violence against the
police.

The
praise began arriving immediately. “I applaud President Trump for
taking action to improve the security of our communities,”
Representative Robert W. Goodlatte of Virginia, the Republican chairman
of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. “President Trump’s executive orders are a good first step toward restoring law and order.”

Still,
about 45 minutes later, when the White House released the actual text
of the three orders, they turned out to contain few specific policy
steps.

For example, the first, on combating international criminal cartels,
largely consisted of stating opposition to such groups, and directed
the government’s Threat Mitigation Working Group — which already existed
because President Barack Obama established it back in 2011 — to review various efforts to battle them and “work to improve” those efforts.

Er...

And the other two, on reducing crime and preventing violence against law enforcement officials,
directed Mr. Sessions to develop a strategy to achieve those goals by
coordinating with other agencies, including at the state and local
levels. The new attorney general is also to review existing laws and law
enforcement grants and recommend changes if necessary.

Bruce
Buchanan, a University of Texas political science professor, said that
while Mr. Trump had issued a few “consequential” executive orders early
in his presidency — most notably his ban on letting refugees and
citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations enter the United States — many
of his others had used the high-profile step of issuing an order for
the purpose of amplifying a political message.

“It
sounds like he is attempting to make it appear as if he is pushing
forward policy positions that he wants to take some credit for,” Mr.
Buchanan said of the Thursday orders. “He wants to be in the papers for
having endorsed things he is generally in favor of, even though there’s
nothing really new.”

See also: my post from the other day re "alternative facts" and the power of the first reality t.v. presidency.

Even though we know that crime rates, particularly violent crime rates, are at 50 year lows, that doesn't stop this administration and its new attorney general, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, from presenting an "alternative" point of view.

“We have a crime problem,” Mr. Sessions said after being sworn in. “I
wish the blip — I wish the rise that we’re seeing in crime in America
today were some sort of aberration or a blip. My best judgment, having
been involved in criminal law enforcement for many years, is that this
is a dangerous, permanent trend.”

Right, and my best judgment is that you stumbled into the truth when you accidentally described last year as a "blip," since that's what it was. A handful of cities experienced an increase in violence, not enough to change the national numbers, and not enough to warrant a trend. In fact, not only is crime still at a 50 year low, the long-term indicators, according to the FBI, show violent crime is actually STILL declining.

Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches criminal law
at Columbia University, was less impressed by Mr. Trump’s cartel order,
noting that “the targeting of international criminal organizations has
always been a high priority, and I supposed he is suggesting that
priority will continue.”

Exactly. It was a big theatrical performance (dare I say "made for reality t.v."?) that basically stated the obvious: we will continue to fight crime and drugs in the U.S. Just like Obama did, just like W did before him, and every other president and AG going back to the 18th century.